A number of years ago The Racing Post published a table that showed the win/loss percentages of the top jockeys in photo finishes,where the margin was a short head. At this time Tony McCoy was the biggest name in the sport, "the punters pal" who,when it came to the small margins, could be relied upon above all others to galvanise every last effort from his mount. However in this study his record was a distant second to Mick Fitzgerald.This provoked a lot of discussion in racing circles at the time,as a indisputable truth held by many,had now been proven to be wrong or had it? Taken in isolation the figures don't lie,but what a percentage written on a page couldn't quantify is the number of times that the genius of McCoy got a horse to within a short head of victory, when others would have trailed in way behind.In actual fact he was being a victim of his own success.
A love of stats has been a growing phenomenon in most sports in recent times with the easy access we all have to information at our fingertips,to a large degree this is a good thing,but we need to be careful what we gleam from them.
For a recent example ,take John Higgins. At the weekend he lost his third final in the space of the last five weeks. If this was another pro with no titles to his name & he kept losing finals, you could probably point to his lack of bottle & question if he really was the top player, but with John,as when he lost those three world finals in a row in recent years,instead of looking at these as negatives ,these defeats can be looked at as proof of just how good Higgins still is.In each of these events, there were numerous times when lesser players would have gone out, but the fighting spirit that John has shown throughout his career kept coming to the fore & although he ultimately ran out of steam in each of the finals, his efforts in getting their should only enhance his reputation instead of diminishing it. The lesson here is that life is more complicated than the final score.
The same can be said for the century break. These are another bunch of numbers loved by the stats boys who obsess over the amount made by individuals in their careers or the amount made in a particular tournament or indeed season. Last week we saw Neil Robertson reach the milestone of 800 career centuries,while Mark Selby recorded his 700th. Laudable personal achievements these may be, should these modern records been used as sticks with which to beat those of previous generations? Yes the modern game produces a lot more century breaks than we saw 20/30 years ago,but to say this is purely down to a higher standard is over simplifying things & again speaks of a failure to look behind the numbers.
The game I started watching in the 80's is very different to what we see today, with heavier clothes & snooker balls making a lot of the shots we see as standard today impossible to play back then. Hendry is credited with pioneering the shot off the blue to break open the pack in 90's, but the fact is that this shot was not possible before then, or to put it a better way, it was not a percentage play with the force needed to achieve it on slower tables.
Percentage snooker was the approach of the vast majority back then ,with a century break only something to be pursued if the opportunity arose once the frame was safely in the bag .At the other end of that spectrum you had the likes of Alex Higgins, who went in to full exhibition mode once the frame was secured. Does anyone who saw Alex at his best really think 87 official career centuries is any barometer of his status in the game compared to the monster totals we see now? or for that matter, is it any measure of Ray Reardon with his total of 53?
OK you may shout, if centuries are not the infallible way to judge greatness,surely there is no disputing total ranking titles as the ultimate measure of success? Well yes and no. A look at the current leaderboard of ranking titles certainly seems to back up that thesis ,with the top four places occupied by O'Sullivan 37, Hendry 36, Higgins 31 & Davis 28. The problems start yet again when you start to delve deeper. Yes Steve Davis has 28,but he had far fewer ranking tournaments to play in in his prime than the others have had & indeed his first two UK Championship finals weren't even ranking events.Even when we get to the Hendry era, though the number did increase, it was nowhere near where it has been in over the past decade.
So if century breaks & ranking titles won aren't reliable, then what is?Well now we get to the real problem,because the answer is no statistic taken in isolation is. I was a life long Steve Davis supporter so in the above paragraph I stated some facts about numbers that supported my argument for his place at the top table. if I was a Hendry fan, I'd point to his 7 world titles as the ultimate accolade in the game, a Ronnie fan, will say look his Triple Crown record and longevity in the sport, in the next decade when Trump inevitably breaks the ranking title & century records ,his fans will no doubt hail him as well.Likewise many will read my above comparisons with the century breaks & see my argument to be me just looking at the past through rose tinted glasses.
The trick for us all is to enjoy what we are watching, remember the special nights& milestones we witness & to try not fall too far down the stats rabbit hole.As Homer Simpson said "People can come up with statistics to prove anything, 40% of all people know that"
